Characteristics of developmental immaturity: a cross-disciplinary survey of psychologists

A critical step towards ensuring a consistent, multidisciplinary approach to the construct developmental immaturity is to obtain a unified representation across disciplines of psychology of the items that represent this construct. A search of the literature revealed characteristics from several research areas including cognitive abilities, decision-making, social skills, behavior, emotional regulation, and self-actualization associated with development during adolescence. The current study examines the factor structure of developmental immaturity in a sample of 553 psychologists from the national membership of the American Psychological Association. Participants completed an on-line, anonymous survey and rated the importance of 53 items related to developmental immaturity. The results from an exploratory factor analysis supported a four-factor solution of developmental immaturity: independent functioning, decision-making, emotion regulation, and general cognitive processing. Generally, psychologists across discipline subspecialties were not significantly different in rating items across the four factors. Findings contribute to a cross-disciplinary, comprehensive operational definition of developmental immaturity and represent the first attempt to identify the set of characteristics that encompass this complex construct.Ph.D., Clinical Psychology -- Drexel University, 201